He was born in Tucumán, Argentina, in 1901. He was executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) between 1950 and 1963. Subsequently, he was secretary general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). His abundant works include Introduction to Keynes (1947); The economic development of Latin America and some of its main problems (1949) [included in this edition]; Theoretical and practical problems of economic growth (1951); Towards a dynamic of Latin American development; Transformation and development: the great task of Latin America (1970); Peripheral capitalism: crisis and transformation (1981). Along with Hans Singer, he was the creator of the Prébisch-Singer thesis, which postulates a continuous deterioration in the real terms of trade of the primary, usually peripheral, economies, based on the fact that the demand for manufactured products grows much faster than that of raw materials. He died in Santiago de Chile, in April 1986.